Recruit #2: Brent Everett
An unranked recruit that I decided to bring in a little late, I think he'll end up being another very athletic big to pair with Leland. These two will probably end up with 90+ ath and good rebounding and defensive ratings. With high-high potential in defense and LP (and possibly any other highs), Everett will no doubt be a very solid contributor to NC St. success down the line. Also, he will RS this year.

EDIT: He led the nation in scoring his senior year and was named 1st-Team All-American. He led a team that started 3 freshmen to the 2nd round of the NT. He became a beast.

I really like Haskell and he was one of my main targets right off the bat. I didn't have to fight anybody for him, so he came pretty cheap. Unfortunately, Kentucky-bound Matthew Lor did not come and he was not cheap. I flushed away about 50k towards my other guard target to no avail. Oh well, Haskell will have to do as our only guard in this class. He'll be pretty good, too. He's not athletic, but he's quick, has high-high defense, and will be able to shoot the lights out and handle the ball. He has a bright future as a 2 guard.

While the DC area has absolutely nothing, the recruits in Maryland really made up for it.With G’town still being sim, Maryland should bring in an extremely strong class with 5 openings.I would expect 5 star prospects Thomas Sobel (#8 PF) and James Irby (#6 PG) to be their main targets.JUCO point guard Ryan Pearson could also be a target for them.Other good targets are Rodney Williams (#15 C, defensive specialist) and high-potential Philip Anderson (#86 SG).What intrigues me is that mets has gone with a very odd recruiting strategy the past couple years, targeting a crazy amount of guys and not really battling for any of his local guys.If this is the case, you could see UNC or Duke come up to get Sobel or Irby, or possibly an adventurous program like Providence to come down and take a crack them.

UVA has Virginia all to themselves and, unlike mets, I am confident demondeac will try to defend his guys.His targets will most definitely include Conrad Black (#8 SG) and probably Lee McDonel (#6 SF).They may also include Phil Ruf (#19 C), although I hope he doesn’t target him because I very much like Ruf, although his LP is a little too low to get into a big battle for him.Jeffery Jackson (#28 C) may also go to UVA, but he’s offensively deficient, so I don’t think he’ll be a big target for anybody.After those guys, Virginia really falls off, not much depth here.

I assume WVU will attempt to go after Richard Hayes (#11 C), but a team with better prestige and more openings will swoop in and try to take him away.Paul Waldon (#45 C) is a decent player, but other than the two Cs there really isn’t anything in West Virginia.

Kentucky has one 5 star recruit, Frank Schilling (#4 SF), who’s going to be a very athletic defender, but he’ll never really develop offensively.He is right by UK and UK is his childhood favorite, there’s little doubt for me that he’ll end up there.After that, there’s not a whole lot in Kentucky.Centers William Colorado (#24) and David Leland (#51) will both probably end up being decent players, but they won’t garner the attention of many top schools.I expect to see B range BCS schools going after them.

Tennessee is WIDE OPEN and whoever decides to capitalize on that will get the prize of 5-star Alan Pickett (#6 PF).Other top players (with big holes in their games) are James Everett (#15 SG, but he’ll have to end up at SF) and pure point guard Matthew Lor (#13 PG)

With all the open scholarships and four coaches who like to battle, North Carolina should be a battle ground.The interesting thing is, while there are a bunch of very good recruits, we don’t have any immediate impact guys in the area. Coy Prosienski is the #1 C in the country, but with low potential in ATH, he’ll never be an elite big man.You’ll be able to find guys who will end up with similar ratings that will come at a far cheaper price.Donald Rathjen (#10 PG) is very solid, probably the second best guy in the state, and I feel like he has UNC written all over him.Another guy with UNC tattooed on his face is the best NC product this year, Edward Akins (#12 SG).Duke will definitely try for him, but Akins will go to UNC, develop fast, be a very good sophomore, be a fantastic junior, and declare after his junior year.Hopefully when I’m reading this in a couple seasons, I’m right.After those three, it definitely falls off.My favorite recruit here is Noble Haskell (#20 PG), who could be a valuable scorer for me.Another notable recruit for the big schools is Gilbert Crouse (#30 SF), who I’d be shocked to see not attend Duke.

South Carolina is home to the #1 overall recruit, Doug Davis.Unfortunately, I think Davis would be lucky to be drafted by the end of his career.He’ll be an athletic defender, but he has no offensive ability and will definitely go under-recruited (which may make him a target for me).Another 5-star player is Francis Reed, a low-WE PF who could end up being pretty good if he can get his rebounding up.Ineligible Steven Aleman (#13 SF) will probably catch the attention of USC and I think he’ll go there cheap.Ronald Fowler (#20 SF) is yet another SC SF with no offensive ability who will probably go under recruited (probably to a mid-major…Duke is a sleeper for him).

Results:Davis-Indiana (once again, Indiana does their due diligence and find a quality player out of their area)Reed-USCAleman-USCFowler-Clemson

Georgia
-Georgia=C+, 4 openings
-GT=B+, 3 openings

Unlike in past years, Georgia actually has a prize recruit.He’s not highly rated, but Jimmy Smith (#39 PG, inel) is going to be one hell of a player.GT and UGA will definitely pursue him.Other than that, this state is very weak.

Alabama is LOADED this year with the likes of Bryan Williams, James Brannum, and David Strickland, watch for LSU.This leaves some scraps for others to come in and pick off the likes of Richard Deforest, David Blom, and John Lisi.

With these two wanting to own Florida now that FSU is sim, the big recruits like Melvin Bullock and Chester Warren are staying in-state.My guess is that these two will also go after Duane Smith and maybe Adam Uchida (less likely), but I could also see them venturing into Georgia for Jimmy Smith.

Well, season over for us. After a much better than expected 21-5 season and a regular season ACC South championship, we were looking good headed into the post-season. That ended quickly as Duke upset us in the CT quarterfinals. This led to us dropping to a 6 seed for the NT, where we proceeded to get crushed by 11 seed Seton Hall. Still, I thought we did well this season by making the tournament. This is the third year in a row NC State has made the NT, which has never happened under a human coach before (simmy did it way back in the day before humans were in D1). Hopefully, an A- prestige is on its way to Raleigh just in time for a key 5 man class. Here's the squad from this year:

We also have two seniors of note graduating this year.
EDIT: Both were All-America Honorable Mention.

First, David Ware: Our star point guard was two-time 1st-team All-ACC and started the last three years, all of which we made the NT. He left his mark on the NC State record books, leaving the school 4th in scoring, 9th in assists, 1st in 3pt %, and 4th in FT%. I'll be surprised if he gets drafted, but you never know.

And then there's Thomas More, a guy whose career was not as prolific as David Ware, but he did have quite a season this year. During ACC play, More lead the conference in scoring and rebounding while being 2nd in FG%, which led him to be the ACC Player of the Year (!!!!), only the 2nd I've had while at NC State (and the 2nd in the last 3 years as Jimmy Christian was POY 2 seasons ago....(and he's the 5th all-time at NC State)). More reminds me a lot of Gil Romano back from my Nevada days, so it wouldn't surprise me if More got drafted.

Hamilton is my first 5 star recruit! He's already very good and he's only going to get better. He's going to play the SF spot (for now) and should be an excellent back-up this season to Rogers. When his PER improves, Hamilton should be a great scorer for us. I have very high hopes for him.

Curnutt is my other elite recruit from this class (it's fun to have two of them!). I almost lost him around signings to Duke, but we were able to fight them off at the expense of the rest of our potential carryover and a start + 25 minutes. It was worth it, though. Curnutt is going to be an absolute scoring machine. The pair of Hamilton and Curnutt is going to rip through the ACC in a couple seasons. I also really like his rebounding and I plan to keep him at a guard spot, so it'll be very interesting to see how he impacts team rebounding.

With our two elite recruits came two low-rated recruits, but don't confuse low-rated with not very good. Hollifield has elite athleticism, is going to be a great defender, and has high-high potential in rebounding, LP, and Per. In his current state, he won't be very good, but if those high-highs explode, we could be seeing a very good PF.

Linquist was a late addition to my targets. He started out considering Old Dominion (a D- sim) and after a little looking around, I realized that he could be pretty damn good with the right high-highs. Turns out, he's high-high in Def, Per, and BH. He's not high-high in Ath, but he's still going to be a speedster who, hopefully, will be a great shooter. WIth these last two recruits, how good they are going to be depends on how much their high-highs explode. If they both explode, we could be very very good in a couple of seasons.

I wouldn't say this season was a little disappointing, but I am excited for next year. We just lost in the PI Final Four after being one of the last four out of the tournament (which was the real disappointment). I really didn't expect much out of this year's team as we only had 2 seniors (and neither could score). While we will miss the defense and rebounding provided by Slater and Braden, next year looks very bright. We will return 1st-team All-ACC and 2nd-team All-American SF Steven Rogers. He'll be the focal point just as he was this year, but another year of develop should really help the players around him. ACC Freshman of the Year Jason Curnutt, our starting point guard, will really help with next year's scoring load. He started off the year a little slow, but of the last 10 games of the season, he averaged 13 points, 4 assists and 3 rebounds. I expect him to exceed those numbers next year. Another freshman who should see a large jump in production is George Hamilton. Coming off the bench at SF and PF, he was one of our top scorers off the bench. This upcoming year, he should move into a starting role at PF and should see a pretty big jump in terms of scoring. The other big man slotted to start next year is sophomore David Leland. Although he's not much of a scorer, his athleticism and rebounding sure make him a valuable asset. He has speed, perimeter shooting, and a little ability to pass and handle the ball, which makes him more fit for PF than C, but my unranked-recruit-turned-prodigy (seriously, I love this guy. Unranked recruit from Florida and after his RS freshman year I think he's going to get drafted. His projected caps are high 96+ ath, 99 reb, 99 def, and 94+LP (it's still blue at 74)) Brent Everett is not quite ready yet to take over the starting center role at the start of next season. If Everett's progress is like it was this year, though, he could very well be a massive part of success at the tail end of next year. Finally, the last two key players for us will be our two SGs. Haskell made great progress on his defense this year, making him an asset on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. Steverson is a rock on defense and will hopefully score more efficiently next year. Both will have to help out backing up other positions (Haskell at PG and Steverson at SF). We do still have freshman Jeffrey Linquist, but he needs a lot more development before he sees important minutes on the floor. I'm really disappointed that he had to play 10 minutes per game this year. Christopher Hollifield, a PF who redshirted this year, is also coming back. He probably won't see many minutes as he still needs time to develop, but his future is bright. Here's the squad from the end of this year:

Our season just ended in the 2nd round of the tournament. The start to our season was rough, but we played well in conference and went 13-3. We ended up with a 9 seed, matched up against an extremely talented Kansas team. We were able to pul out the game by 3. Unfortunately the next round was against 1 seed Villanova. We played decently, but ended up losing. For a team with only 2 seniors, I think we played pretty well. Even with this NT win and Rogers potentially getting drafted, I think we'll probably still stay at A-. With the 2 seniors and three walk-ons, we'll have 5 openings for next year. This will be a very important class for the future of NC State. Here's this year's squad:

There was one graduating senior of note this year: Steven Rogers. He was named 1st-team all-conference for the 2nd time as well as ACC POY. He finishes his career 3rd all-time in scoring in NC State history.